The opening weeks of the American presidential primary season are like the round robin of the world junior hockey championship — they don’t decide the winner, but they do determine who gets to play in the medal round.

We’re there now — from the Iowa caucuses on the first day in February, to the first-in-the-nation primary in New Hampshire the following Tuesday, to the Republican and Democratic primary and caucus dates in South Carolina and Nevada on Feb. 20 and 23.

This is the time when the Des Moines Register and the New Hampshire Union Leader become the two most influential newspapers in America, when scholars from universities you’ve never heard of show up on cable news channels to explain caucusing in Iowa and independent voters in New Hampshire.

These are the two break-out states — both about 95 per cent Caucasian, with thin populations and northern geographies quite unrepresentative of the United States as a whole. If you can imagine a primary for Canadian leaders being decided by voters in, say, Yukon and Prince Edward Island, you’ve got a pretty good idea of how presidential campaigns start in the U.S. No country should choose its leaders this way — but that’s how it’s done in the most powerful democracy in the world.

This cycle to elect the 45th president of the United States is more fascinating than most in that it’s the first primary and general election year since 2008 which sees neither the Democrats nor the Republicans running an incumbent president. That said, it comes down in the opening weeks to whether anyone can challenge Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination and whether someone — anyone — can turn back the insurgent candidacy of Donald Trump for the Republicans.

Right now, it looks like Clinton versus Trump in November. And what a show that would be, as we’ve seen in the exchange of insults and accusations between the two contenders in just the last week. The other day, Clinton accused Trump of having “a penchant for sexism.” Trump retorted on Twitter: “Be careful Hillary as you play the war on women or women being degraded card.” Trump targeted Bill Clinton directly, accusing him of “abuse of women” — a reference to the former president’s history of womanizing. (Campaigning for his wife in New Hampshire this week, Clinton had the good sense to ignore Trump.)

Trump is connecting with independent and undecided voters, not just as a celebrity candidate but as a sort of ‘anti-politician’. Not content to run just against Washington, he’s running against the political class itself.

Possibly more problematic for the Clinton campaign are Bill’s paid speaking gigs, usually at $500,000 per speech. The Wall Street Journal has reported he “collected $1 million for two appearances sponsored by the Abu Dhabi government that were arranged while Mrs. Clinton was secretary of state.” Abu Dhabi was then in talks with the State Department on pre-clearance of passengers on flights from its airport to the U.S.

Even Clinton faces a spirited challenge from Bernie Sanders, the socialist senator from Vermont who could well win the neighbouring state of New Hampshire. Right now, Sanders is competitive in Iowa and ahead in the polls in New Hampshire.

Sanders certainly has staked out the territory on the left; he went to New York’s financial district Tuesday and pledged to break up the big banks. “If a bank is too big to fail, it is too big to exist,” he declared. He’s calling for universal health care and cites the Canadian model as one the most successful systems in the world.

Sanders can’t possibly win the Democratic nomination, of course — but if he beats Clinton in the round robin that would present a “winnability” issue for her in the medal round, where she should win easily in South Carolina and Nevada.

As for the Republicans, their run-up to the primary season has featured too many candidates in the televised debates; even after the winnowing-out process was complete, there were still nine on stage at the CNN debate in mid-December. There will be two more Republican debates this month — one next week in South Carolina and a final Fox News showdown in Des Moines on Jan. 28.

Trump was, of course, the phenomenon nobody in the GOP establishment saw coming. Jeb Bush, the former governor of Florida, came with impeccable family and regional credentials as the successful leader of an important swing state. But eight years out of office, he’s proven to be quite rusty and his campaign is mired in single digits in the polls. Senator Marco Rubio, also from Florida, represents generational change and has a compelling personal narrative as the son of Cuban immigrants. Senator Ted Cruz, from Texas, represents the hard-right edge of that same immigrant story, with an American mother and a Cuban father.

So how does Trump end up ahead of the field by double digits? Partly it’s because Trump clearly doesn’t care what he says — whether it’s outrageous or merely offensive. Building a wall on the Mexican border, a “total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States” — Trump is running a xenophobic, even racist, campaign.

And it’s working — in a nation of immigrants, no less. Trump is connecting with independent and undecided voters, not just as a celebrity candidate but as a sort of ‘anti-politician’. Not content to run just against Washington, he’s running against the political class itself. “How can I describe our leaders better than the word ‘stupid’?” Trump asked the other day. In small-town New Hampshire Tuesday night, he filled a hall with 1,500 supporters, while hundreds more waited out in the cold. “We’re winning big,” he shouted, and the crowd cheered him to the echo.

He’s also been winning (until this week) without an ad buy, relying on earned media from interviews and outbursts on social media. The Trump campaign has finally rolled out a 30-second spot in Iowa and New Hampshire in which the narrator repeats his attacks on Mexicans and Muslims and adds for good measure that he would “cut off the head of ISIS”.

Trump is not going to be outflanked by Cruz on the right. In an interview with the Washington Post Tuesday, Trump revived the question of Cruz’s birth in Calgary, where his parents worked in the oilpatch. Elected to the Senate in 2012, he was a dual citizen until 2014, when he renounced his Canadian citizenship. The U.S. constitution stipulates the president must be a “natural born” U.S. citizen, though it’s generally agreed this covers children of Americans born abroad.

“A lot of people are talking about it,” Trump told the Post, “and I know that even some states are looking at it very strongly, the fact that he was born in Canada and has had a double passport. Republicans are going to have to ask themselves the question: ‘Do we want a candidate who could be tied up in court for two years?’ That’d be a big problem.”

Ah, the return of the birthers. But that’s Trump — he’s impossible to ignore. America, and the world, may just have to get used to it.

L. Ian MacDonald is editor of Policy, the bi-monthly magazine of Canadian politics and public policy. He is the author of five books. He served as chief speechwriter to Prime Minister Brian Mulroney from 1985-88, and later as head of the public affairs division of the Canadian Embassy in Washington from 1992-94.The views, opinions and positions expressed by all iPolitics columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of iPolitics.

The views, opinions and positions expressed by all iPolitics columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of iPolitics.